Published on: Oct 19, 2015 @ 13:42
Welcome to the new weekly podcast article! Each week, we’ll focus in on a podcast topic, and open it up for community discussion.
Shortly after Bungie introduced the new currency “Silver” into the game, there was a few “unrevealed” items discovered… locked in boxes.
Among these were items that seemed to increase droprates in the King’s Fall raid. We won’t see these King’s Fall consumables though, since they were placeholders.
However, there are items that focus on boosting your subclass rather than boosting your Light. We talked about the Subclass Infusion and Starter Pack consumables in this article. Will these be sold for Silver? That’s still unknown.
Reminder: keep in mind that datamining is not always reliable.
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Fast Forward
There is a lot to say for an in-game item that instantly maxes out a subclass. I unlocked the Sunbreaker’s class on my Titan the day The Taken King launched and I still haven’t maxed it out. Once I do, I still have my Warlock and my Hunter. Once you go Titan…
Being able to switch your class mid raid in order to meet the need of your Fireteam is what makes you a valuable member of the team (WE NEED A BUBBLE, MC HAMMER!) Considering the time it took me to (almost) max my class, it will take a long time before my other two Guardians raid ready.
Is it tempting to me to pay $5 to fully upgrade a subclass and start focusing on gearing up? Yes!
The downside of buying yourself a maxed out subclass is that it would devalue the rewards from Bounties. Right now, the only reason I have to even look at the bounties is the easy XP it yields to sink into my class as I haven’t relied on XP to upgrade my gear since you could use a seemingly endless supply of Motes of Light.
But am I sad I will never have to punch 25 Vex in the face without dying for 3000 XP? Well, no. Most of my enjoyment in Destiny comes from teaming up with friends to run a few Strikes; my experience there is notably better if I come fully prepared.
Am I one of those players that has more disposable income than time? Absolutely!
The danger with grind-reducing microtransactions is that it favors the money-over-time players, leaving the players who have time, but not necessarily the money, with seemingly deliberate barriers to their progress. In Destiny’s case, I would like to believe the system of leveling up has not been pre-designed to introduce pay-to-advance mechanics as we’ve been using them since launch. Even though Destiny relies on the “Carrot and the Stick” principle when it comes to gear advancement, leveling up and maxing out your skills are more of a hurdle you need to deal with.
Adding XP-based consumables for Silver can remove the leveling grind for people with limited time, without giving them an “edge” over the people who have to do the hard work for their advancement.
- If you have plenty of time to run your daily bounties? Xander 99-40 is there.
- Or, if you’d rather spend some money to skip the grind and jump into the action for 2 hours a night? See Tess.
Now if only I could pay Tess to git gud….
How do you feel about payed xp boosters in Destiny? And let us know if you resonated with anything else that was brought up in the podcast this week.
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